A song sparrow is fitted with a tiny band Aug. 1 at the Red River Valley Natural History Area in Crookston, Minnesota, where University of Minnesota-Crookston researchers are participating in an ongoing national songbird study. (Brad Dokken/Grand Forks Herald/MCT)

Sporting a tiny band on its right leg, a least flycatcher is placed in a pill bottle for weighing Aug. 1 at the Red River Valley Natural History Center in Crookston. The bird was captured and banded as part of a national study to learn more about songbird survival and productivity. The University of Minnesota-Crookston is the only site for the study in the Red River Valley and one of only about a half-dozen in Minnesota. (Brad Dokken/Grand Forks Herald/MCT)

John Loegering, an associate professor in wildlife ecology at the University of Minnesota-Crookston, blows on the breast feathers of a great-crested flycatcher to determine the bird's gender and body fat condition Aug. 1. Loegering is part of a research team at UMC studying songbirds as part of a national survey to learn more about the birds' productivity and survival. Looking on is Sami Benoy, a recent UMC graduate working at the Northwest Research and Outreach Center in Crookston. (Brad Dokken/Grand Forks Herald/MCT)

CROOKSTON, Minn. — The bird wasn’t happy about its predicament. And judging by its angry squawks and clacking beak, the great-crested flycatcher was even less impressed with Laura Bell’s efforts to free its wings and feet from the mesh that rose from the forest floor like a large volleyball net.

As if putting an exclamation point on its displeasure, the angry bird proceeded to forcefully unload its bowels on Bell.

That would be poop, in lay terms. Call it one of the hazards of being a scientist studying songbirds.

A lab coordinator and naturalist in the University of Minnesota Crookston’s natural resources program, Bell was among a small crew gathered at the Red River Valley Natural History Area on this perfect August morning, trapping and banding songbirds as part of a national effort to learn more about the birds’ productivity and survival.

Located across U.S. 2 from the Crookston campus, the 85-acre natural history area is owned and operated by the University of Minnesota’s Northwest Research and Outreach Center.

Undaunted by her splattered misadventure, Bell soon had the noisy flycatcher free and settled inside a small cloth sack before the next phase of its adventure — being banded, weighed and measured.

“I’m happy to shove him in there,” Bell said with a laugh. “He bites and he squawks.”

And worse.

“I have never encountered a bird projectile like that one,” she said. “It’s just defense — they do anything they can think of — but it goes with the territory.”

ABOUT THE SURVEY

As part of the survey, a national effort known by the acronym MAPS — short for Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship — the Crookston crew had been on site since 5 a.m. setting 10 mist nets at various sites throughout the natural history area.

The mist nets, which measured about 40 feet long by 10 feet high, extended between two poles and “opened” at sunrise — 6 a.m. on this day.

The crew then checked the nets every hour for the next six hours, “working up” the birds they caught in a screen tent set up elsewhere on the property. Besides banding, weighing and measuring the birds, they examined fat and body conditions and recorded the data for future reference and submission to a national database.

The birds then were released.

According to John Loegering, a Minnesota-Crookston assistant professor of ecology, this is the second year the Crookston campus has participated in the MAPS program. It’s the only survey station in the Red River Valley and one of only a handful in Minnesota, he said; North Dakota doesn’t have any survey sites.

Nationwide, the MAPS program includes more than 300 locations, Loegering said, and each survey station follows the same protocol, setting the same number of mist nets in the same locations every year. The survey calls for 10 sampling periods, which must occur once in every 10-day block, Loegering said, and is timed to capture local birds rather than migrants.

Because of Crookston’s northern location, the Minnesota-Crookston crew samples only seven times, beginning in early June and wrapping up last week.

BY THE NUMBERS

Loegering said nearly 400 songbirds have been captured and banded in Crookston the past two summers. Most abundant are American redstarts, flycatchers, yellowthroats, yellow warblers, vireos, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, Baltimore orioles, robins, catbirds and goldfinches, species that fly closer to the ground and are more apt to be caught in the nets.

“Last year, we caught several birds that we again caught this year and were able to determine their survival using the data,” Loegering said.

Banding songbirds might not have the glitz or glamour of working with larger birds such as ducks or raptors, but the survey is an important tool for keeping tabs on species that otherwise might be overlooked.

“Certainly you can get the public excited about raptors and waterfowl because they’re large and you typically see them,”

Loegering said. “These are the songbirds that you hear in back yards and city parks and woodlands throughout the state. But you typically don’t see them up close unless they’re in your backyard birdfeeder.”

Added Bell: “They’re so little that people sometimes forget about them.”

Loegering said it’s too early to draw any conclusions from Crookston’s contribution to the survey because they have only two years of data, but the findings help fill a geographical gap.

That’s why Minnesota-Crookston decided to be part of the survey, which required obtaining both state and federal permits to capture and band the songbirds, a lengthy process.

“It’s part of the university’s commitment to help move science forward, and this is one activity we could do that would be very useful,” Loegering said. “This northern prairie environment — or at the edge of the prairie — is an environment we don’t have on a nationwide basis (in the survey), so this is our contribution.”

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